


Standing For and Leaning On

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Series: The Thinker, The Feeler [3]
Category: Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Alien Biology, Confessions, Developing Relationship, Dorms, Dubious Science, Fever, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Loyalty, Panic, Partnership, Past Abuse of Science, Pre-Earth Transformers, Sickfic, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 20:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7984924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heatwave is forced to take care of Chase while he's down with a common Cybertronian virus, but Chase's inexplicable reaction to it will make it a learning opportunity for both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Standing For and Leaning On

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Enclosed in the story is a headcanon credited to delkios on tumblr. I suggest you read that story first but it's not severely mandatory. If you want to read the headcanon, go [here](http://delkios.tumblr.com/tagged/rescue-bots) and look for "Everything's Alright".
> 
> If you want the short version, it's that some Bots have been part of scientific experiments which dampen their emotions to make them "more objective", but it just makes it hard for them to understand abstract ideas like "fun" or "joy" or "hate". Some of these Bots develop anxiety problems, obsessiveness, perfectionism, etc. Chase is one of these Bots.
> 
> Apologies to my characters (well, they're Hasbro's characters but you know what I mean), but when I get sick, they get sick.

The acid rain began sometime in the night, but Heatwave wasn’t too bothered by it. He was busy doing what he always did: training. He only paid it enough attention to growl in frustration that he wouldn’t be able to work out in the open air. Chase was kind enough to spar with him, letting him expend much of his annoyance. Of course it didn’t help that Chase was softening his blows, going easy on him. Heatwave tried to put some spark into him by soundly besting him—eight times in a row—but eventually Chase opted for planting himself in a chair, drinking several cubes of energon and studying his library of police manuals. From there it was a quiet orn and Heatwave didn’t take much notice.

By the time the next morning dawned, however, the streets were coated in the slick acid, which was still coming down hard. Heatwave peered out the window, ex-venting in annoyance. They hadn’t had a storm this bad in several vorns and it looked like it was going to keep them inside for a while longer, probably for the rest of the quintun. Granted, they had all of the essentials here in their Academy student house, but it wasn’t ideal.

“Chase, you should see this,” Heatwave suggested over his shoulder, but Chase didn’t answer. Heatwave stared through the window for another minute before turning. He found Chase with his helm in one hand as he sorted through his data pads, occasionally sighing and tapping his fingers against his chamfron. “Did you hear me? What’re you so busy with?”

“I’m sorting my manuals numerically instead of alphabetically,” the policemech replied distractedly, placing another data pad on top of the growing stack.

“Really?” Heatwave drawled skeptically. “So 900.908 comes _before_ 600.603 in your numerical system?”

Startled, Chase ran his hand over his optics and then peered at his stack. “Well. That is embarrassing.” With that blunt statement, he corrected his error and then ex-vented again, rebooting his vocalizer with a burst of static before returning his hand to his helm.

“You alright?” Heatwave questioned, nudging him slightly. It earned a flinch which surprised him and prompted him to repeat the question.

“I’m perfectly fine,” Chase replied in the monotone, staccato accent he involuntarily adopted when he was hiding something.

“Ohh, I left you sore after sparring, didn’t I?” Heatwave chuckled, miming a few of his signature punches. “Sorry about that. Just keep working and maybe next time you won’t take it easy on me!”

“I’m ready to return to my duties, but my partner keeps distracting me out of his boredom,” Chase deadpanned, downing the rest of his latest energon cube and placing it out of the way, with three others. Heatwave caught it as it tipped from the tabletop and gave Chase an odd look, but his friend had already returned his attention to what he was doing.

“Well, don’t stop on my account, then,” he grumbled lightly before wandering off. He ended up shadowboxing until mid-evening and emerged to find that Chase had disappeared; he must have gone to recharge early.

 _Nice of him to leave me with no one to talk to,_ Heatwave mused dryly, studying the scattered data pads and then the stacks they belonged to, scoffing incredulously when he noticed several numbers out of place. With nothing else to do, he did Chase a favor and sorted them properly before retiring.

When Heatwave came downstairs the next morning, he expected to see Chase sitting in his chair again, too wrapped up in studying to have heard his partner’s arrival.

Oddly enough, the chair was empty.

“Chase?” Heatwave called, glancing in puzzlement toward the door of Chase’s berthroom, just to the right of the stairs. He couldn’t still be recharging; by Chase’s own schedule, he should have been up a joor ago. Even so, the door was closed and there was silence behind it.

“Chase,” the firemech called again, approaching the door tentatively. Even though Chase had given him the opening code, he could count the number of times he’d been inside on one hand and he didn’t want to seem like he was intruding without any permission. “Chase, are you planning on coming out anytime soon?”

His answer was a muffled scrabble, a strange cross between a sigh and a yelp, followed by a terrible crash. Instinct taking over, Heatwave sprang for the keypad, rapidly typing up the code and rushing in as soon as the door slid aside—sooner, in fact, as he smacked his shoulder against it on his way in. That and the darkness in the room made Heatwave take a minute before he spotted the police officer on the floor of the joint washroom, cradling his helm.

“What’s wrong?” Heatwave demanded. At the sound of his voice, Chase promptly dropped his hands to the floor, blinking pale, off-green optics at him.

“My apologies, Heatwave,” he mumbled, making an abortive move to get up, his knees skidding out from underneath him. He splayed his hands out for balance and shuddered a little, adding, “I th-think my optics need recalibrating. I lost my balance…” He coughed lightly, glanced at the floor and then back up at the red mech.

Crouching in front of him, Heatwave looked him up and down doubtfully. “You _never_ lose your balance.” Chase didn’t reply, clearly thinking his position on the floor would be enough evidence to the contrary, so Heatwave put a hand on his arm to help him up, only to recoil just as quickly at the fizz of heat over his sensory net. “What the—?” Warily he moved the hand to his friend’s chamfron, exclaiming, “Chase, you’re overheating! You have a virus or something?”

Chase uncomfortably tried to stifle a staticky, sputtering cough before mustering, “I assure you, H-Heatwave…I’m f-functioning optimally…”

“And doing a terrible job at it,” Heatwave finished for him, his tone harsh only out of guilt for what he hadn’t noticed the orn before. He should’ve known something was off as soon as Chase made the mistake with his numbers—no, even before then. Chase hadn’t been pulling his punches in their sparring match; he’d been too sick to put up a fight. “C’mon, I’ll get you up off the floor.”

So saying, he carefully pulled his friend into an upright position, unnerved by how willing Chase was to lean on him—and Primus, he _was_ warm. He wasn’t as overheated as he could be, but he was sure to be aching nonetheless, so he should sit as soon as possible. Decided, Heatwave steered him toward the nearby berth. Thankfully Chase kept his suite immaculate, so there wasn’t anything for them to trip over in the darkness.

Chase sat on the edge of the berth, a rattled coughing fit forcing its way out of him before he shuttered his optics tightly, gingerly pressed a hand against his chest and calmed his vents into shallow wheezes. Heatwave winced on his behalf; he could hear the thick excess coolant in Chase’s vents.

“Sounds like you have a CSI.” Searching for something else to say, he added, “I got coolant system infections a lot when I was a sparkling.” It wasn’t like that made him an expert, but he hoped he at least sounded confident.

“My duties,” Chase murmured, as though he hadn’t heard. “They can’t wait.”

“Duties, huh?” Heatwave scoffed. “Right now, all you need to do is lie down and keep still. It’s not like you can waltz out into the acid rain and get work done.”

Chase coughed again, a harsh sound that Heatwave certainly didn’t like, and then rebooted his vocalizer. Surreptitiously the officer glanced at the doorway, as though wondering how quickly he could bolt in his weakened state. Heatwave pinned him with a steadily-deepening glower until Chase reluctantly sank onto his side, vents kicking through a high cycle to a low cycle before randomly alternating.

“You just, uh, relax,” Heatwave urged distractedly. “I’ll find some anti-corrosives.” They would attack the source of the problem, which was just how Heatwave liked to fight, but he also knew that he wasn’t a medic. There were probably other things he could be doing to take care of his partner and since it seemed the comm. unit was down due to the storm, he would have to figure it out on his own.

There weren’t any anti-corrosives in Chase’s washroom, so Heatwave jogged upstairs and turned to his own. It held a low supply, but maybe Chase was one of those types who wouldn’t need very much for the nanites to help. After some thought, he eventually snatched up an energon cube and some circuit boosters too.

Upon going back downstairs, he found Chase in the same position he’d left him in. Heatwave studied him with unease for a minute or two before piling his supplies on the nightstand.

“Here,” he offered, dumping what was left of the anti-corrosives into the energon. “Sit up and drink this.”

“I don’t particularly have an appetite,” Chase admitted. His face was hidden in the thermal tarp, but Heatwave could just barely hear him.

“You’re slurring,” he pointed out, wishing he could take some satisfaction from catching it. “You’re low on power, so you need energon. C’mon, I put the anti-corrosives in it and everything.” Chase hesitated for a few more kliks, his vents hitching and then whirring thickly. Heatwave growled in impatience, which fortunately hid his worry. “How many times are you going to make me say it? Sit up and drink the _slaggin’ energon_. That’s an order as your partner or your temporary medic or whatever.” _Whatever makes you listen so you can recover._

“Certainly, sir,” Chase huffed at last, clearly reluctant to move but unable to resist an order. Heatwave watched him closely as he sipped at the cube.

“How are you feeling?” Heatwave asked when his partner finally set it aside, half-empty. It was a stupid question, but he didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m ready to return to my duties,” Chase answered, giving him a sidelong glance that would have been sharp if his optics weren’t so dim.

“That’s not how CSIs work and you know it, so why do you keep saying that?” Heatwave huffed, exasperated.

“Would you rather I didn’t?” Chase asked, seeming genuinely puzzled.

“Yes. No! I mean…” He sighed. “Just—be honest with me.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Heatwave.”

Optics narrowing, Heatwave countered in a warning tone, “You know what I mean, Chase. I _know_ you want to get back to your precious manuals! Tell me what you’re _feeling_ , not what you want!” It was a high order. Heatwave wouldn’t say that Chase was bad at expressing feelings, but he wasn’t…adept at it either. His partner paused, optics searching out a place to rest that wasn’t Heatwave. The firemech knew that wasn’t out of hesitation; Chase was thinking hard about how to answer the question.

“Alright,” he admitted at last, his vocals softer. “I feel…cold, tired and achy. Heatwave…” His vocals lowered a bit more, to the point where Heatwave had to lean in slightly to hear him as he ventured, “how serious is a CSI?”

“Well, they’re—” Heatwave stopped the calculations he’d automatically begun, peering at his friend in belated bewilderment. “Wait, why are you asking? Everyone gets them.”

“What do you know of it?” Chase persisted. “Is it a virus n-native to Cybertron?”

Something in Chase’s optics convinced Heatwave to sit on the edge of the berth, folding his arms. “Chase, you’ve had a CSI before, right?” he asked cautiously.

Chase swallowed, vents hitching again. “Tell me how serious it is, Heatwave, please; I—I neglected to do the proper research. I’ve heard that anyone with a CSI ought to be avoided, sequestered if necessary, because it’s all too easily transmittable—” Chase snapped his mouth shut, seeming to realize that he was rambling, and his optics sparked without warning. Clumsily he recoiled toward the head of the berth, commanding sharply, “Get back, Heatwave. Leave now!”

“What? Why?”

“You told me yourself that you’re prone to coolant system infections,” Chase reminded him, clear urgency lacing his tones. He coughed twice, gasped and coughed again, flinching further back. “Take my ration of medicine; you—you may still have time for a preventative measure—”

“Well, that’s more likely to get me sick than anything else!” Heatwave tried to protest. That only seemed to alarm Chase further and _that_ was infectious. Trying to backpedal, he stammered, “W-Why are you getting so worked up about—?”

“You need to isolate me before you’re infected too! If you stay, you’re exposing yourself to the plague and I refuse to see you suffer simply out of your concern for me as my friend!” The next cough became a chain of them and whatever the reason—the startling words, his confusion and worry, the fact that they had no one else there to help them, or perhaps it was the coolant that had started trickling from Chase’s vents—Heatwave broke.

“Stop, stop panicking!” he hollered angrily, frantically, even though he was doing the same. “A CSI is a common virus and it’s not at all life-threatening unless you make it worse and you’re making it worse by panicking and fraggit, I’m _not_ going to run and hide when you’re coughing up your fluids or any other time! I’m not abandoning you!” Thus he took up the nearby energon cube and forced it on him until more of it was staining the thermal tarp than actually getting into Chase’s systems. Heatwave set the mostly-empty cube aside just in time to catch his friend as he slumped sideways toward the floor.

It was only in the sudden silence that Heatwave recalled that he’d stirred a copious amount of circuit boosters into the energon beforehand. Ex-venting shakily, he gently pushed the senseless mech back onto the berth and then rounded the other side, pulling at the thermal tarp until Chase had mostly disappeared from view. With that finished, Heatwave sank into the chair at the desk in the corner and took a minute to think.

Maybe it was a good thing they were alone; their little shared panic attack would have been really embarrassing if anyone else had witnessed it.

Heatwave hated this. He had a short attention span when it came to inactivity and now there was nothing to do but listen to Chase’s shallow venting. Cursing, he rose and strode out for the training room. He needed to beat something, but he made sure the berthroom door stayed open just in case.

The morning came and went, as did the afternoon. It was only in the evening that Heatwave noticed the thermal tarp had been kicked off and Chase was trying to sit up. Heatwave managed to cross half the distance at a calm stride, but the second half passed much more quickly.

“Hey,” he greeted nervously. “How are you feeling? And answer me honestly the first time.”

“Drugs,” Chase managed, blinking glazed optics.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I kind of forgot when I made you drink that whole cube all at once.”

“Mmm…”

“Chase,” Heatwave began, stern and deliberate, “since you’re calmer like this, I’m going to tell you now and I hope you remember: a CSI is a common thing. It’s nothing to be worried about; your systems will reset in a few quintuns, okay? You understand?”

After a klik or two, Chase shuttered his optics and leaned back on his elbows. “NET,” he mumbled. “The NET scientists…kept me fully sterile until my third frame-transfer. The first virus I ever got was a rust rash. It nearly killed me…”

Astonished, Heatwave stammered, “You—you don’t have to tell me this.”

“I do.” Something like frustration crossed Chase’s features. He tensed as much as he was able and did his best to enunciate clearly over the rattle of his vents. “There’s always another f-facet to what they did to me…Always…another issue I need to tell you about…something else I’m sorry to put you through and I can’t help it.”

“I knew what I was signing up for,” Heatwave assured him. It was a half-truth, and a guilty one, given the situation. This was another session of trial and error, where Heatwave failed to notice something important until some kind of slag hit the rotors and Chase finally realized he needed to explain himself. Even so, it didn’t matter. “I told you that I wasn’t going to abandon you and I meant it. We’re partners; it’s what we do.”

Chase stared at him for a long minute, to the point where Heatwave was searching for some other way to reassure him, and then relaxed inch by inch. “May I hold you to that?” he ventured even as he sank onto his back and shuttered his optics. Heatwave waited until he was sure Chase was out again before he slowly nodded.

“ _I’ll_ still hold me to that, even if you stop,” he muttered, lightly squeezing Chase’s shoulder before returning to the desk chair.

Sometime during his self-imposed vigil, the storm outside faded toward the horizon.


End file.
